Conventionally, the exhaust gas of a car contains pollutants such as unburned hydrocarbon (HC), an NOx gas and an SOx gas. In order to reduce the pollutants, therefore, S in a gasoline is removed from the SOx or unburned HC is burned by a catalyst, for example.
More specifically, as shown in FIG. 14, a car system 100 takes air in through an automatic element (filter) 102 and feeds the air into an engine 106 through an airflow sensor 104. Moreover, the car system 100 feeds a gasoline in a gasoline tank 108 into the engine 106 through a gasoline pump 110.
Based on the result of the detection of an A/F sensor 112, the injection of the fuel in the engine 106 is controlled by a fuel injection control device 114 in order to have a predetermined theoretical air fuel ratio.
For an exhaust gas fed from the engine 106, hydrocarbon (HC) in the exhaust gas is burned by a catalytic device 116 and is then discharged as the exhaust gas through an oxygen concentration sensor 118.
In such a car system, gasolines sold all over the world include various gasolines having different distillation characteristics (different easinesses of evaporation) as shown in FIG. 15.
More specifically, FIG. 15 shows the distillation characteristics of gasolines, illustrating a relationship between a percentage and a temperature. Namely, for example, an axis of abscissa of 50% (T50) indicates a temperature at which 50% of each gasoline evaporates.
As shown in FIG. 15, for example, a gasoline A2 represents the heaviest gasoline (which rarely evaporates) and a gasoline No. 7 represents the lightest gasoline (which easily evaporates) with respect to a standard gasoline No. 3.
As shown in the following Table 1, accordingly, for example, in the case in which the heavier gasoline A2 is used in a car regulated to have a theoretical air fuel ratio with the standard gasoline No. 3, the amount of HC in an exhaust gas is small and a torque becomes insufficient, particularly, at time of engine starting in which an engine and a catalytic device do not warm up.
To the contrary, in the case in which the lighter gasoline No. 7 is used, the torque is insufficient and the theoretical air fuel ratio is exceeded. Furthermore, in this case, and the amount of the HC in the exhaust gas is increased, particularly, at time of the engine starting in which the engine and the catalytic device do not warm up, which is not preferable because an environment is greatly influenced.
TABLE 1RegulatedExhaust gasgasolineUsed gasolineTorque(HC)No. 3No. 3◯◯No. 3No. 2X◯No. 3No. 7◯X
The present inventors have proposed a fluid identifying method for causing a heating member to generate heat by carrying electricity, heating a temperature detector through the heat generation, thermally influencing a heat transfer from the heating member to the temperature detector through a fluid to be identified, and distinguishing the type of the identified fluid based on an electrical output corresponding to the electric resistance of the temperature detector, thereby periodically carrying the electricity to the heating member in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11(1999)-153561 (particularly see paragraphs [0042] to [0049]).
In the fluid identifying method, however, it is necessary to periodically carry the electricity to the heating member (in a multipulse). For this reason, a long time is required for the identification so that it is hard to identify a fluid instantaneously. In this method, moreover, it is possible to identify a fluid based on a central value for substances having very different characteristics such as water, air and oil. However, it is hard to identify the gasolines having very close characteristics to each other accurately and rapidly.
In consideration of such circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for identifying the liquid type of a gasoline which can identify the types of gasolines having different distillation characteristics and various compositions accurately and rapidly.
Moreover, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for identifying the liquid type of the gasoline of a car using the apparatus and method for identifying the liquid type of a gasoline.
Furthermore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for reducing the exhaust gas of a car using the apparatus and method for identifying the liquid type of a gasoline which can efficiently reduce the exhaust gas and can enhance a mileage.